County councillor for ten Cambridgeshire villages: Pampisford, Ickleton, Duxford, Fowlmere, Gt Abington, Thriplow, Whittlesford, Little Abington, Babraham, Hinxton.
District councillor for the communities of Whittlesford, Heathfield and Thriplow.
Five years ago - in the early summer of 2008 - people living in the villages of this part of Cambridgeshire mobilised in their hundreds to "stop Hanley Grange" and oppose the proposals for a 10,000 house development.
People believed that the planned new-town, put forward under the eco-town initiative of the then government, would have swamped Hinxton, Pampisford and the villages of Great and Little Abington, put Sawston High Street out of busines, and made the A505 even more of a gridlock than it is already.
Over the last few weeks I have been reminded of that effort by local people in the faded car bumper sticker I saw at Pampisford last Thursday and the odd poster on a playground fence. Now the local housing plan has been published, showing that most of the new houses over the next 20 years will be built at Northstowe, Bourn Airfield, Waterbeach and on the outskirts of Cambridge at Trumpington.
But there is always the chance that the people who own the land on which Hanley Grange would have been built will argue that allowing such a settlement would - mirroring Northstowe - meet the housing demand south of the City.
So as always, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
I took part in the debate at South Cambs District Council's Full Council meeting today over whether locally we should help pay for widening the A14.
This is very unattractive, because like most people, I feel I pay my taxes for things like major roads, so I would prefer not to pay again through the council tax.
But we know that if there isnt a local contribution, then the A14 will not be widened, because the government has said that any such future road schemes will require an element of funding from local councils.
The thing that is holding up the building of Northstowe new town north of Cambridge is the poor infrastructure. The developers won't build the houses without a better road. And if Northstowe isnt built, then the argument for lots of development in and around our villages all comes back again, and the developers dust off the file called Hanley Grange - the 10,000 houses around Hinxton, oppositive Pampisford, that we fought against in 2008.
Hinxton has many things going for it - it still retains a very rural atmosphere - walking up the High Street you can see the fields stretching away behind the houses, even though the village is a few minutes drive from petrol stations and railway stations and the M11. The pub appears to be doing well, and the parish council is active, and there are little quirks like the library in a telephone box that made me smile.
Talked to people there this afternoon about the bus service which is bedding down, the roads, footpaths and cycleways. The fight in 2008 to keep the 10,000 house Hanley Grange development away still registers strongly.
The SCDC planning boffins have looked at all the sites offered up for future development, including the old eco-town/sneako-town Hanley Grange.
Their assessment puts the boot in on Hanley Grange viz.,
"New settlement east of A1301 and west of A11. Significant heritage, landscape & townscape impacts. SSSI & potentially protected biodiversity. Air quality & noise from traffic. Highways impact only manageable if development is self contained. Significant utility upgrades needed."
Out talking to people in Mill Lane Whittlesford - plenty of extensions being built, some really interesting - a quiet corner of the village, with the school and the art restoration institute nearby.
Issues discuused included the C7 bus, footpaths, threat from developers, how good William Westley is, all sorts of national issues such as interest levels and the NHS.
Only problem was I'd forgotten to bring my coat - I was frozen by the time we finished!
We
have managed to secure Keith Miles, the head of planning policy from
the district council to come and talk about the proposed development
issues across the district and how they might affect whittlesford. Some
of us know Keith from the Hanley Grange campaign from a few years back.
He is very sensible and well worth coming along to discuss this with.
So we are letting people know - even though it is short notice - so that there is a reasonable turn out
and a chance for people who are concerned to come along to listen and
find out more.
Here is a more detailed update on the planning process that will be working its way through South Cambridgeshire District Council over the next three years.
In the past SCDC and the Government agreed a housing target of 21,000 houses by 2016, based on the then prospects for the economic growth of our region.
Time has moved on, and SCDC and the Government is now looking at the period 2017–2031.There are two parts to the analysis
1.To decide how many new houses will be needed, called the “Housing Needs Assessment”.
This process started earlier this year and will last to Summer 2012, when the findings will be put out to public consultation.Obviously, the analysis has to be based on sound projections, forecasts and evidence, and cannot be arbitrary, and it can be challenged if it is not rigorous enough.
2.To decide where those houses should go, called the “Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment”.
That process started in June, when landowners and developers were invited to put their land forward, called the “Call for Sites”.On 28 September, SCDC published the details.There are sites spread across South Cambridgeshire, and include some of the land previously known as Hanley Grange, as well sites at Heathfield and Whittlesford.
SCDC will now take about 9 months to consider these sites.It will publish (in Summer 2012) an “Issues & Options” paper for public consultation.For example, the options might be:
(a)to focus on more new towns a few miles away from Cambridge; or
(b)to expand out from the edge of Cambridge; or
(c)to locate developments in existing villages; or
(d)a combination of those, or something completely different.
For each option, the list of sites that have been put forward will be ranked in order of suitability, according to ‘best practice’ guidelines published by Central Government.Each entry on the list will also specify the number of houses that can fit on the site.
The ‘Issues & Options’ paper will be subject to public consultation and, afterwards, a vote of the 57 elected Councillors at SCDC.
Then, when the chosen option is known, and when the Housing Needs Assessment is finished (so there is a decision on how many houses SCDC needs), the planners will (in general) approve development on the necessary number of sites to reach that number, starting from the top of the relevant list, and working down until the required amount is reached.
Please appreciate that this note is just a very brief summary of the very complicated process of drawing up our area’s next “Local Development Framework”.Full details are here.
At south cambs this evening for a meeting with parish councils.
SCDC needs to prepare a Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) as part of the evidence base for the new South Cambridgeshire Development Plan. The SHLAA is a technical assessment that will identify sites that are potentially suitable for housing.
Click to take you to the maps of the land that has been put forward by developers and land-owners, and which was discussed in general terms.
Officers reckon a fraction of the land put forward will be needed to meet housing needs. Clearly housing round Cambridge is a good return on investment. Some of the land that was "Hanley Grange" is there again.
Process will take three years, with first step being a technical review of the land offered up - eg flood plains. Then public consultation in June next year, with decisions the following year.
Spent an afternoon at south cambs district council with reps from parish councils being briefed on various developments in the planning world. All a bit dry, but Ken Winterbottom from Whittlesford PC and Anthony Cooper from Thriplow PC both asked some killer questions.
Because the district council is the planning authority it is starting on preparation of a new South Cambridgeshire Development Plan, which will set out the planning policies to guide the development and use of the land in the district up to 2031.
Part of this exercise is a call for land that could be used for housing. This runs to Friday 29 July 2011.
Why does it matter? The call for land has the effect of allowing developers the opportunity to try to bring their plans back to life - such as the 12,000 houses proposed for a site called Hanley Grange.
The government planners came up with four options for concreting over East Anglia (oops, I mean building sustainable communities for the future). I was at the Regional Assembly in July when we debated these options, and voted to put them out for public consultation. It is called the "regional spatial strategy".
If people express a view that they prefer the option of building some, but not lots, of houses, then it makes it more difficult for developers who happen to be in possession of a big plot of land and want to persuade the planners to let them build a big town on it.
It follows that people who want to express a view on the regional spatial strategy options have until the end of this month to go here
I met up recently with Andrew Lansley, our MP, who spearheaded the fight against Hanley Grange, and we reminded ourselves that the campaign last summer to stop Tesco building HG was a GOOD THING
I rounded off a busy week (two evenings of parish council meetings and an evening district council meeting) by attending the East Of England Regional Assembly on behalf of South Cambs District Council.
The Assembly consists of 53 elected councillors from across the east of england, and today we voted to start consultation on what sort of growth (including housing) we can realistically expect in this region over the decade ahead. One thing that we decided was that any growth in the region needed to be supported by timely provison of infrastructure - in other words the roads, schools and amenities to support house-building.
The main thing now is that is up to the district councils - including South Cambs - as the planning authorities, to provide the evidence for what sort of growth is sustainable. We must do this otherwise the planners in Whitehall will conjure up housing numbers that will result in concreting over the historic counties of East Anglia. And if they do come up with big numbers, then our friends the developers will blow the dust off Hanley Grange ...
Bit odd, but suddently out of nowhere comes the response from Number Ten to all those people who signed the petition last summer against Hanley Grange. You'd have thought Gordon had other things on his mind just now.
The response begins by giving an interesting interpretation of why the developers backed down:
"Since you submitted your petition on 17 April 2008 Hanley Grange has withdrawn from the eco-towns process, with the promoters deciding that they needed more time to develop their proposal."
No mention of the huge public opinion against it and the campaign last summer. (Here's a handsome chap running the petition stall in Sawston!).
And then goes on to say:
"While assessment of the location is included in the Sustainability Appraisal for Hanley Grange and Cambridgeshire published on 4th November 2008 the Government would not consider taking forward a scheme for this location before the next review of the East of England Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS). The promoters would expect it to be considered as part of the planned review of the RSS."
It is that last sentence which calls for eternal vigilance...
Actually, its a bit more than a year, as I was elected district councillor at the beginning of May last year. Here are some of the main issues that I have been bothering the local press about over the year:
the huge fight which lasted all last summer against the "sneako-town" Hanley Grange, and the campaign in the autumn to try to keep Thriplow Post Office from the axe
My attempts to keep One Railway and more recently National Express up to the mark about safety and security at Whittlesford Station, and the parking on Station Road
The possibility of a Cambridge congestion charge, which I believe would make life more difficult for people living in south cambs villages
the field at Thriplow Heath over which we secured a High Court injunction on to stop any inappropriate use.
Next Tuesday will see South Cambs District Council identifying sites for development to meet the requirements of the Regional Spatial Strategy. Even though the RSS is a huge volume of bureacratic gobbledegook, it is nevertheless something we need to pay attention to.
Because of the building slow down and other recession reasons, big developments like Northstowe are not coming on stream as quickly as they should, therefore we have a shortfall in the numbers we originally put into the RSS and we need to find them.
We have to do this, because, as nature abhors a vacuum, if we don't, then a speculative developer could pop up and say "here's a site all ready that could take upwards of 12,000 houses." If the district planning committee then turned down those proposals, then the planner would be off to the Planning Inspector to appeal, quicker than you can say "eco-town, sneako-town" and the appeal might succeed.
So we have to do this. As the Americans say, eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.
Just back from the celebrations at the Red Lion, Hinxton, where there was a cake and drinks and lots of goodwill and merriment among all the people who worked hard over the last few months to see off the proposed Hanley Grange development. Andrew Lansley, our local MP, was there. He really rolled up his sleeves and organised us all, and lobbied hard with Caroline Flint, and the Wellcome Trust and Tesco, to make them see sense. It seems a very long time ago since I sat in someone's kitchen in Whittlesford with Andrew and we looked at an OS map and tried to make sense of this proposal.
Final thought: in a few years time, this will be back, in one shape or another, so the watchword must be eternal vigilance.
The Hanley Grange proposal, to build up to 12,000 houses in three phases on the triangle of land bordered by the A505, A11, A1301 was put forward presuming a level of co-operation between of a number of land-owners, not just the principal developer, Jarrow Associates. At presentation I attended on 30 June the developers stated that the second phase of development, towards the southern point, was to be on land not owned by Jarrow Associates.
This is land owned by the Wellcome Trust, and a number of people, led by Andrew Lansley MP, have been asking questions about what was going to happen to that land, which was originally acquired from South Cambs District Council in December 2002. I asked the Council in June if there were any letters or memos which explained the section 106. agreement that Wellcome had signed at the time, and there weren't, but the agreement itself states that the "Wellcome Trust for itself and its successors in title will not change the use of the Hinxton Estate."
Today the Wellcome Trust have issued a statement saying: "The Wellcome Trust was approached by Jarrow Investments Limited to consider becoming a partner in the Hanley Grange eco-town submission. The Trust has given very careful consideration to the approach and has decided not to proceed with this proposal. The Wellcome Trust owns around 270 acres of land on the Hanley Grange site. "
The consequence of this decision is that the land owned by Jarrow Associates in the central belt of the triangle is just enough to meet the threshold for supporting enough houses to form an eco-town - maybe 5,000 houses. And it could be that once that is built, or started, then maybe other landowners will come back on board. So an interesting development but not one that ends the eco-town proposal.
Last Friday the Hanley Grange developers finally put their proposals to a session of South Cambridgeshire District Councillors. I listened to their presentations, and took part in the questioning afterwards, which came from district councillors of every political persuasion.
The real concern I had was that in response to specific questions, the developers were always vague, saying things like "yes, good point, we are working on that" or "I can't give you details at this stage".
As an example, given that the developers have been clear on the square metre size of the supermarket they wish to build at Hanley Grange, I asked what proportion of the overall retail space that would represent. They would not say.
I have reflected these concerns that the detail of Hanley Grange is not going to be subject to the usual and necessary planning process for such a major development in my letter to the Housing Minister, Caroline Flint, which I attach.
Spent most of yesterday manning one of the stalls set up across south Cambridgeshire to raise awareness of the proposed 8,000 house development at Hanley Grange. I thought I'd have time to eat a bacon sandwich but it was brisk business - and good fun. Maybe I should have run a market stall for a living!
The sign-up rate was just under one person a minute, young and old. People were coming up and saying "this is bonkers and we need to stop it." To be fair, there were one or two people making the point that affordable housing is to be welcomed. I completely agree, but given the housing plans proposed for places like Trumpington and Northstowe, there should be plenty of houses coming on stream without the need to cover a greenfield site with brick dust.
Across the south of Cambridgeshire over 700 signatures were added today to the petition. I found people very well informed about flood-plains, greenfield sites, sustainable travel and transport infrastructures. They understand what an eco-town should be, and as an elderly gent said to me "This ain't it.
The developer's website has changed the numbers, so that the orginal 8,000 houses proposed is now amended to around 7,000 new homes on 375 hectares, with an opportunity to deliver a further 3,000 homes in the future. The leafletting and publicity raising by the local Joint Action Group of Parish Councils continues. There is a public meeting for Whittlesford residents scheduled for Thursday, 5th June. The developers are also planning a roadshow.
Two very important meetings last week have moved the campaign on apace.
One was a session chaired by Andrew Lansley, the local MP, which gave local councillors, and parish council reps. the chance to catch up on the evidence that is being pulled together to argue the case against Hanley Grange. This covers issues like infrastructure, transport, true picture on local job situation etc. I really felt that after that meeting, we were all beginning to work as a team.
The second meeting was of all the parish council reps, including from Whittlesford and Thriplow, who have formed the Joint Action Group to get local activity going, letting people know what it planned, doing local publicity, and doing it very well. But there is so little time - next steps are more public meetings to raise awareness, and keeping the pressure on via petitions, letters, press stories, and more evidence gathering for the submission to go to the Housing Minister.
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